Help with when to pitch yeast, first lager

[mcfire12]

Well I'm brewing my first lager this weekend and I believe I have everything figured out and my fermentation schedule all figured out. I'll be using saflager s-23 and attempting a boston lager clone. Anyway, the thing i'm hung up on is at what temp I can pitch my yeast. I'm doing an extract brew and i'll be pitching the yeast dry without rehydrating or making a starter.

I've been told to just go ahead and pitch it like normal after I have it chilled down with my immersion chiller at around 72* and i've been told I need to let the wort cool down to 55* (which is what the yeast package says to use it at)

Since I do extract, I considered not doing a full boil in my big bk and topping it off with some very cold water to try and get closer to 55*

I have an empty keezer i'll be using to do this in, so I considered putting it in my primary bucket after the brew and setting the keezer to 55* and letting it sit overnight or all day before pitching my yeast. That scares me with having that much time for something bad to set in though.

So what's the best way for me to go about this?

 

[m00ps]

As long as you sealed it up and had good sanitation itll be fine. FWIW, I pitch all ym yeasts the morning after during the summer when the groundwater cant get the wort below 80F

 

[mcfire12]

Good to know, thanks! I'm sure my well water isn't going to do a whole lot, looks like i'll just chill it down best I can, dump it in the bucket, and toss is in the keezer and pitch the yeast in the morning.

When you're trying to keep the liquid at a certain temp like this, do you place the thermometer probe into a dish of water inside the keezer or just let it hang out and work off of the ambient air temp?